Step back in time with a visit to the Gundagai Historical Museum. This place is a real treasure trove packed (10,000 items, so they claim) with old machinery, photographs, clothing, household items,etc, all depicting life in the town in the late 18th and early 19th centuries – a time of pioneers, gold prospectors and bushrangers. Continue reading “Gundagai Historic Museum”
I have written separate reviews on Gundagai’s Boer War Memorial, located in front of the town’s ornate court house, and the WWI Memorial at Rusconi Place near the former railway station. Typically, and especially so in smaller country towns, World War I memorials have been expanded to also commemorate sacrifices in WWII and later wars and conflicts. Indeed this occurred in Gundagai but in 1958 a new memorial park, with a grouping of memorials to various wars and conflicts was built in what is now known as ANZAC Park, which also includes a football stadium and various other recreational facilities. This is now Gundagai’s main war memorial. Continue reading “ANZAC Park War Memorial”
Located along Sheridan Lane by Morley’s Creek are a number of reminders of the 1852 flood in Gundagai.
Europeans began settling in Gundagai in the 1820s. Ignoring the advice of the local Wiradjuri Aboriginal people, they established and developed the town on the low-lying alluvial flats between the Murrumbidgee River and Morley’s Creek – that large expanse of lowland (floodplain) between the river and today’s town which you can see traversed by the Prince Alfred Bridge and the Old Railway Bridge (picture 5). Continue reading “Yarri and the Great Flood of 1852”
The landscape at Gundagai is dominated by three bridges spanning the Murrumbidgee river and its floodplain: the Prince Alfred Bridge, the Railway Bridge, and the new Sheahan Bridge which forms part of the Hume Highway linking Sydney to Melbourne. Continue reading “Gundagai’s Historic Bridges”
Gundagai, being roughly half way between Sydney and Melbourne, was for a long time an important transport hub. Sadly, nowadays it is a town most people speed by in a vehicle on the Hume Highway or in a metal tube 30,000 ft above the town. Continue reading “Gundagai Railway Station”
‘Erected to the Glory of God and the honour of brave men by a grateful people.
Great War 1914 – 1918′ Continue reading “Gundagai War Memorial – Cenotaph”
Gundagai is famous for its Dog on the Tuckerbox sculpture located at Five Mile Creek outside the town.
In my separate review of the sculpture I have given details of the story behind it so will not repeat the details here. Please read my Dog on the Tuckerbox review in conjunction with this review if you have not already read it.
Here on Sheridan Street, Gundagai’s main street, the Dog on the Tuckerbox story is depicted in a few aging/ flaky murals on the outside of the Gundagai Pharmacy (across the street from St Patrick’s Church). Continue reading “Dog on the Tuckerbox Murals”
Certainly for me the post office is one of the nicest buildings in Gundagai. It is a fairly simple red brick building built in 1879. I especially like the ‘swirl’ on the balcony which has an early art deco look, so either it was ahead of its time or it was a later addition to the original building.
More interesting than the building itself is that Gundagai Post Office was the base of Australia’s last mounted postie (postman). Continue reading “Gundagai Post Office and Mounted Postie”
European settlers arrived in the area around 1826 and Gundagai developed on the Murrumbidgee River flats. In 1846 a land grant was made to the Catholic Church, not in the town but to the north on the slopes of Mt Parnassus. Had the Catholics been banished from the township? Continue reading “St Patrick’s Catholic Church”
The Second Boer War (1899–1902), which ended with the Treaty of Vereeniging and the conversion of the Boer republics into British colonies, involved large numbers of troops from many British possessions right across the world. This was the last great war restricted to Empire participants and ironically Australia’s first war as a nation, following Federation in 1901. Australians made up five per cent of all Commonwealth forces serving in South Africa during the war. This was a major contribution given the size of its population. Continue reading “Boer War Memorial”
The Rambling Wombat 